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Born in 1946, activist Candy Lightner spent her early life in California. She went to American River College in Sacramento and later married Steve Lightner. The couple had three children, twin daughters Cari and Serena, and son Travis. In 1980, her daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver. Lightner formed Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to raise awareness on this problem and to fight for tough laws against offenders.
Candace was appointed to a national commission on this issue by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. The following year, Lightner left MADD. She has continued to work on social and legal issues as an activist since then. She also serves as a consultant to organizations and companies. She has been credited with saving over 400,000 lives.
Passion makes the impossible possible. Thank you Candace and Hitendra - two amazing dynamos to humankind!Anna Pavlick
Thank you Candace for what you have done and are still doing for the greater society and the world.Vikash Seni
Thank you so much Prof. Wadhwa for giving us the opportunity to be part of Intersections. I look forward to every week as it is very inspiring, motivating and awakening.Asha Singh
In this episode of Intersections, Prof. Hitendra Wadhwa has a conversation with Candy Lightner on the topic “Living Your Values”.
At our core, each of us possesses a set of values that we deeply identify with. And yet, in our everyday lives, we drift away from our core from time to time. What might life be if we fused our every thought and action with our deeply-felt values? How can we change our outer world when it conflicts with our inner world?
The episode “Living Your Values” offers key insights on:
Hello, everyone. A warm welcome back to Intersections, where our aspiration is to have us understand what our fullest potential can be, both in life and in leadership by creating intersections. Intersections as in a fusion of inner and outer, of profit and purpose, of East and West, of science and spirituality. But also, intersections as in bringing fresh voices, bringing thought leaders and practitioners and people who are leading story and remarkable lives on to this camera in this community so that your path and my path can intersect with their path for a moment and we can listen to them and tune into them and gain inspiration from them. Then they go on and we go on. Hopefully we've all been inspired in some powerful way.
Today, it is a great pleasure for me to have Candace Lightner. I'm going to be introducing her and then we're going to start the conversation with her in just a couple of minutes.
Let me just close out one follow up that I want to do from last time. I had on this Intersection webcast last time with us, the great pleasure of having Melanie Joy, who gave us some really powerful thoughts and ideas on relationships. Many of you had written to me, even after the webcast, to talk about how thankful you were and how inspired you were about provocative and thoughtful ideas that she was offering about how to nurture relationships, especially at a time like this. Closer to the second half of the conversation, we zoomed out and we went from purely a frame which had to do with human-to-human to do with human-to-nature, to human-to-other life forms.
In that part of the conversation veganism came up as a practice that Melanie personally favors and has committed her life to. That in turn, raised the question for some of you. For instance, one of you wrote to me and said one question that I was left wondering was, how deeply is compassion? As a quality connected with carnism with the idea of whether you eat meat or you don't. If one is not a vegetarian, does he or she not be as compassionate as somebody who is a vegetarian? So that was a question that a few of you had in your mind after that conversation. I realized we weren't able to do full justice to it right there.
Here is the position that I would take on that matter just as a way to give us some mathematical construct to think about that question, which is ultimately the intent of this show is to give us an opportunity to go within to ask hard questions of our own self and find truth coming from our own inner light. So to that end, how can we claim that someone who is choosing to not eat meat is more compassionate than someone who's eating meat. If, in fact, there are other aspects of compassion in how you treat your fellow human beings, in how you are with yourself, etc., where perhaps someone who's eating meat might be, extremely remarkable. I also meet incredibly remarkable people like that who have chosen to go down that path, etc. I feel like these questions are so rich in nuance that you overly simplify to make any kind of quick black and white judgments on the basis of one issue which is around your dietary choices would be too limiting a frame. But then ultimately, the purpose of this webcast is to get each of us sparked in a certain way, to get each of us to be opened up to certain ideas and thoughts and possibilities. If we have time, I might share with you my own journey with regard to my relationship with the world beyond humanity, the universe, the planet and all living forms. But that's a different conversation.
For now, what I want to offer to you is that with regard to the logic and value of that part of the conversation that we had with Melanie Joy, I might encourage you to just see it as a mind opening question you ask yourself, which is the following; when we think about relationships, when we think about opening our heart, when we think about the quality of compassion, do we only want to limit that conversation to something that relates to human-to-human? Or is it possible that it also relates to human-to-animals? From human to the planet, from human to the universe?
Here is a little thesis that I'm just going to read to you from an article that one of my colleagues sent me that I found very profound and beautiful in this regard. I'm actually going to give you a link to that article so that you can also, if you're interested, enjoy it in your own leisure time. Here are a couple of thoughts from that article. "Many historical movements in the world have three key words that express the spirit. For example, in the American Declaration of Independence, they were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The implication is that it's human life, human equality and human happiness. But what about the idea that we as humanity are also dependent? We are dependent on nature. We are dependent on other communities. We are a member of one Earth community, and maybe what we need is a certain different trinity, a certain different three part set of things to look at. One is our own spirit, our own soul. The other is the soil, which is the planet, the extended community beyond just the human race. After all, we are dependent on the planet for food, for oxygen and for other things. And the third is society, as our extended self." So he calls it soul, soil and society.
I'm going to leave it up to you to take that in your own path on your own on our own time. But I just want to offer that up as a closing remark, which is the purpose of Intersections to spark thoughts and ideas, but ultimately to seek to take us within our own personal intuition and guidance from it to make the right choices and call and keep evolving our notion of self.
On that note, it gives me great pleasure to be introducing Candace Lightner to you today. She has been a pathbreaking force in society. I can't think of a better person than Candace for us to have in our midst when we aspire and we hope to find a path forward on how to evolve society, on how to forge meaning, on how to have a meaningful impact in all we take on in life and leadership.
All right, without further ado, let us welcome into our midst, Candace Lightner.
Hi. Nice to be here.
Warm welcome, thank you for joining us. I've had such a rewarding experience having you in our classroom at Columbia that I have often felt so drawn to the idea of also finding a way to connect you with the broader community of people that we have had a chance to be engaging in our work. It just gives me a very special joy today knowing that we are making that happen right here.
Candace, maybe we can just start by helping our audience understand where this journey began for you. I'm going back to May 3, 1980. It's a day that we recently had the anniversary of. I know it's not easy for you to go back with a flood of memories that you have from that day. But if you could just help our audience just understand what triggered this path that you have taken ever since with what happened that day. I think that would be a great gift to them.
Sure. On May 3rd, my 13-year-old daughter Cari, was walking to a Catholic school carnival, which was just down the street from where we lived. She and her friend were walking inside the bicycle lane. She was hit from behind. She was thrown 125 feet. She was left in the road to die. It was a hit and run.
They didn't catch the man until several days later. At the time that they did, I learned that he was out on bail from another hit and run drunk driving crime, that he had had a number of other prior drunk driving arrests and convictions and yet he was still driving on a valid California driver's license.
I know a lot of people think that I should have been very angry at him, and obviously I was. But as I learned more about her death and the reasons behind drunk driving and what was going on in the country at that time, which is hard for people to realize who weren't alive back then, but it was basically socially acceptable, I became really more angry with the system than I did with him. I was just really angry at a system that I believed enabled him to continue to drink and drive.
Candace. There's a quote of yours that I have read where you talk about how you promised yourself on the day of your daughter's death that you would fight to make this needless homicide count for something positive in the years ahead. That quote is so heroic. It's so remarkable the fusion it shows of a certain level of deep anger that you were feeling and yet have the capacity for you to rise above it and to feel like something positive has to come out from it. Could you talk about that a little bit like where did that spring from? What exactly was that thought or idea that came to you that day?
I'm not sure Hitendra I would say rise above it when thinking about it, because it's really hard to rise above the kind of pain that I was feeling then. In my case, what happened was the anger was so prevalent and prominent and I was incredibly angry and outraged that we were allowing people to do something that was killing 25,000 people a year at that time, and that comedians made jokes about it. Everybody identified it was a drunk driver and nobody identified with the victim that this was such a prevalent thing that nobody thought twice about.
It was the anger that took over and the anger was so great that I felt strongly I had to find a solution. I'm very solution oriented, no matter what the tragedy is in my life and no matter what the conflict is, I always want to find a solution. I felt equally the same in this case.
In her case, my solution really was initially to donate her organs so that someone could live or be well again. Then I found out that I couldn't because her body was so badly mutilated that I couldn't do that. I don't think I've ever felt more helpless in my life and more lost and I kept thinking, what good can I get out of this child's death? She was my baby. She was an identical twin. She was my oldest. Hence, the solution was to make sure this doesn't happen to someone else. That started my journey.
Yeah. Wow. Along the way, you faced many unpleasant surprises, didn't it? I noticed at one point you shared with me and with the class about how you found that there was a pervasive violation of this ethic of not driving drunk across different parts of society. You weren't really getting the empathy or the support from people. Can you talk about what that was like when you started to go on this quest to help other parents and help other mothers not lose their children and what you discovered in the world?
Well, let me tell you something. The thing I learnt is, it's tough when you feel like you've got right on your side, which I did, and other people don't agree. The people that didn't agree were the people in power, basically. I had a legislator throwing me out of his office. I had another one tell me if I didn't like the way this country operates, I had to leave it and move out of the door. I had a judge say to me one time, "If you don't like the laws in this country, little lady, change it." So I did.
It wasn't like I was embraced by the politicians and the leaders that I needed to influence in order to pass the legislation or change the policies that needed to be changed that in fact would protect society from drug and drunk drivers. My biggest challenge was how to win them over.
There is a question being asked about the role of sort of anger in all of this. Is anger something that can be a crippling force, a blinding force, or is anger actually something that can be also a force for positive transformation? What was your relationship with that anger that initially was weighing heavy on you?
It's hard to go back 40 years because I don't have that same anger now, although I can still get angry and I can still get passionate about different kinds of injustice, angry that they exist, angry that no one has done something about it, angry that my child died as a result because no one else had done something about it.
So in my case, that anger and I've often said this; MADD wasn't helpful with my grief, but it was very helpful with me in dealing with my anger, because every time we accomplished something or a bill was passed or more people would join me or I was able to help more victims and survivors, the anger would diminish more and more, because I saw it doing so many good things. We were changing attitudes. People weren't drinking and driving anymore. We were saving lives. In the first three years, deaths were reduced by about 20%. We were seeing results that I never even imagined.
When you see the good that anger in my case did, it makes it worthwhile. Eventually, the anger goes away and is replaced with more thought processes and more strategic thinking, etc.
Yeah. Did you think when you embarked on this, that this would be the size and scale and enduring impact that you would achieve or aspire to achieve? What were you thinking in those initial steps?
I wasn't. I remember I went back to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and I was researching. We didn't have computers, Internet and Google and all that in those days. So you did it in a much different way. I went back and I was meeting with some of the people that worked there, some of the doctors and people who had worked on this issue for years. I remember one of them said, "If you make a dent in 10 years, I'll eat my hat." Which I did give him three years later to eat.
I didn't really stop and think, "OK, I'm going to do this or I'm going to make this kind of a difference." I wasn't motivated by that so much as I was motivated by raw emotion and by making sure I had such a need to protect my remaining children.
For those of you who don't know, this was the second time my family had been impacted by a drunk driver, the first time both twins were injured, when they were babies. Not hospitalized, but injured. I just had this tremendous need to protect them from having this happen again and to protect other people as well.
So I didn't really sit down and think, "OK, this is what I want to accomplish." I sat down and I thought, "I just want to make sure that people don't think the same way about this as they do now." I wanted to change my attitude. That's really what I wanted to do. It was to change attitudes and make drunk driving socially unacceptable.
Yes, thank you. How did you end up feeling? Did you have the confidence to take this cause on and tell us a little bit about your background in terms of your qualifications, so to say. There was no LinkedIn that time, but if there was, then what would that profile have said. Why were you going to be the right person to take on this mantle for the world?
I think I was crazy. I was so incredibly naive, which really worked in my favor. By the way, I wasn't a registered voter. I honestly didn't know the difference between a Democrat and Republican. I had to go out and register to vote before I actually met with my first legislator, because I was told to do that by someone. So I did and I became an Other and I'm still an Other.
I was a real estate agent and a mother of three, a single parent. I didn't have any really major formal education. I simply was this mother who really felt strongly about an issue. My education was day by day. I learned day by day. I made mistakes and I learnt not to repeat them. It was really a learning experience. I think today, if I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't, to be honest with you. But it was naivety.
In fact, someone once called me, "Mrs. Smith goes to Washington." And I will tell you that it truly worked in my favor. I didn't think I knew it all. I was willing to listen. I absorbed knowledge. I listened to both sides, by the way. I remember when I first started, I was learning how to deal with legislation and what lobbying was all about. It was the California Highway Patrol, because they were the ones who really helped me there. And I wanted to have a meeting with both sides, the people that I thought would be opposed to what I wanted to do and that the people I thought would be supportive. I was told by a number of people, "Oh, you can't do that. That's not how it works. You don't do that." Well, I did because I didn't know any better. So I sat down with both sides and said, "OK, what would you agree to hear? What did you agree to? What would you do? What won't you do? What will you support? What won't you support?" And it was an incredible learning experience for me. It helped me in terms of moving forward and designing and developing what strategy I used.
Candace, I want to invite you to share some more with us about the journey. Share some stories. I remember you were talking about how much of a struggle you had in trying to get into the California governors. Can you share a little bit about that journey? What was that about?
Well, we had a strategy to deal with a problem at the local, state and national level. At the state level, I decided to call on Governor Brown, who was the governor at that time, to form a commission, a task force to solve the problem of drunk driving. It was always to solve, never to study. We started a petition drive. My first press conference was to announce the founding of MADD and to announce a petition drive. I always believe it should be for things. We did this petition and I tried to make an appointment, but I was refused. I tried on numerous occasions and I kept being refused. I would even go into his office carrying balloons and I would take cookies in for the staff and I would just sit there all day in the hope that he would come by and maybe notice me and decide he was finally going to see me. I had some people working behind the scenes that were also trying to get me in. I was absolutely not successful. I was not able to get in to see him.
Then we decided to call on the president at that time, who was Carter, to start to form a presidential commission to solve the drunk driving problem. I went back to Washington D.C. and Cindi Lamb, whose daughter was the youngest quadriplegic in the world at that time because of a drunk driver, joined me. She was out of Maryland. She started her own group, her own organization, after Laura was injured. Laura did eventually die at the age of seven from her injuries. She and I joined forces and we picketed in Sacramento. Cari and Serena's friends had picketed. On the spur of the moment we decided that we would picket at the White House in D.C. We had never set up anything like this. I don't think we had any permits, but we thought it would be a good idea. At that time it was Cindi and me basically. Every TV show or radio show we did, we mentioned that Cindi and I were going to march on the White House. It was either in the morning that we did the big press conference or the day before Cindi and I went out there. Cindi had Laura with her in a stroller, and I had a placard with a picture of my daughter talking about drunk driving.
It started with just Cindi and I. I know people aren't going to be impressed when they hear the thousands and thousands of people now marching for whatever. But people came by and honked their horns. They pulled over. They joined us, it was maybe a little over a hundred that it ended up being, but it was the fact that it was spur of the moment. People didn't know us. They didn't know who we were. They either heard us on the radio or they saw our signs and they decided to join us. It was such an impactful moment for me to realize that we were able to draw in 100 plus strangers into this cause, because in the beginning, you tend to think it's your cause.
Anyway, we did the press conference and I was actually warned by the Governor's office that if I said anything negative about him at all, I would never see him. The first question that was asked was by a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, he said to me, "Mrs. Lightner, I understand you've been trying to see the governor." I said, "Yes, I have." He said, "Have you had any success?" And at that time, we had something in California, they were called fruit flies that were harming the crops and he was going up and down the state, trying to deal with the farmers and these flies. My response was, "No, because he's more concerned about fruit flies than he is about dying children." That was just the thing that I believed. I said it and I thought, "Well, I guess I can kiss him goodbye." But, that's what I believed.
When I got back, I actually already had a meeting set up in his office with other people and as it turned out, they called me back and I was able to meet with him. We had a wonderful conversation. I became a big fan of his during that time period.
Yeah. Thank you. Candace, one quality that I so admire in you which is shining through in the story already so far, is a sense of fearlessness with which you have approached. The idea that you don't have a fear in your own perceived limitations, the reactions of people, whether you will succeed or fail at the cause, whether people laugh at you or engage with you and support you when you're walking out and taking certain public steps and actions. You just seem to be the free flowing of spirit and energy from you into the world beyond based on what you think is right to do it at any given moment.
One question we have is; what is the greatest learning that you have taken away that you could share with us?
Well, in my talks I say this. As I mentioned before, I was incredibly naive, I wasn't a registered voter, I didn't have a college education, I struggled through two years with twin babies, and yet I was able to start a movement with no experience, no background, no education whatsoever, and I was able to succeed. So it is my firm belief, based on my experience, that anyone can make a difference. Anyone can have an impact. It doesn't have to be a global impact, it doesn't have to be a national impact, it can be just a little impact at the local level. It can have an impact within your home, within your community, within your workplace, but anyone can if they really believe strongly in what they need to do and they believe that it is the right way to move forward, even though some people will obviously disagree with you. I believe anyone can do this.
Candace, you talked about the depth of conviction, the depth of belief, and we are going to talk about that soon in the work that you're doing now to codify, what it takes to succeed at social reform, social activism, but this depth of conviction or belief, did it ever get shaken in you? Did you ever have a period where you were getting a little bit dissuaded or just disenchanted or distracted from this cause.
I did, because of my grief. It wasn't because of things people said to me so much as it was because of the pain that I was going through. Most people didn't realize I was going through that kind of pain because I didn't believe in crying in public, at least for me, because I felt that it would take away from my message. My crying was done in private.
I remember one time I was learning to speak. I'd never spoken in public before. I used to read poetry that I had written and my knees would knot so bad, you could hear it against the podium in my real estate company. So I had booked an engagement with some local neighborhood thing. That morning, I was so overwhelmed by pain which was like a ton has been just put on your heart. It is like 2,000 pounds are sitting on your heart. I literally could not get up. So I called the gentleman and I apologized and I said, "I'm sorry, I'm not going to make it today." He wasn't kind about it. He wasn't nice about it. I didn't tell him why. I probably should have, I should have said, "Well, I'm feeling two thousand pounds of rock on my chest." But I just said I can't make it.
Anyway, when I was learning to speak because I'd never done public speaking before, somebody said, "Oh, go to Toastmasters and they'll help you." Put together a speech and go. They do this little hourglass, and they turn it upside down and they write down all the things you do wrong and afterwards they'll critique you. I thought, OK, then I need to do that. So I went and I spoke and the clock turned upside down. I kept waiting for people to take notes and write down things. But nobody did. At the end of my presentation, I sat down and I looked around the room and they all sort of talked and then they said to me, "You know, you did a number of things wrong. We're just going to be honest with you. You did a number of things wrong. Don't change a thing." And that was like, wow! I guess I can speak. The lesson here is speaking from the heart. It doesn't matter if you don't say this right or your flow is off or whatever the criteria is, it is the speaking from the heart that matters.
It's so beautiful. We have a class I teach online on communicating with impact. One of the core ideas that I discovered through studying some of the great speakers and leaders which you evoked so beautifully in what you just said is the notion of a complete fusion between you as a speaker and the message you're seeking to communicate, and the audience that you're communicating it to. That fusion has to come when there is a deeply felt connection at your core with what it is that you're offering, what it is that you're communicating. We see it so vividly from you, Candace.
Let's talk about the here and now. You, so far showed us a story that got you to conceive MADD, to launch MADD, to engage in that journey towards social reform and change, which while it was focused in the United States of America, over the years, those values of traffic, safety and discipline have gradually percolated to other parts of the world, of course, through well-founded initiatives in those parts of the world as well. But so much of that has been your energy and influence. For example, in India, where drunk driving has been a big menace. Even now, it's not something that is completely purged. Yet I see a certain awakening of consciousness that is happening with the way that we're crossbreeding strengths from across different cultures. America is borrowing a little bit from different parts of the world. India is borrowing a little bit from America, etc. But this is one force that you unleashed that is gradually taking over the whole planet, which is beautiful.
Let's talk about what has been happening since, because you at some point decided to move on beyond MADD and you started another organization. What is this new organization that you started?
We Save Lives. I started We Save Lives because I was very involved at that time with two different companies at two different times who were dealing with the drugged driving issue and had developed products that would help take drugged drivers off the road. I actually became very passionate about working with them about the problem of drugged driving. Ironically, my son, when he was four, was run over by a woman on Valium and critically injured, was in a coma. So I already had a personal connection to it, but I didn't realize the problem was as prevalent. Even though at MADD, we had drugged driving in our mission statement, you just didn't hear about it as much because it didn't have the right kind of testing. They had testing, but it wasn't what they have now.
So, I started mixing and mingling with different traffic safety groups, etc.
There were actually two things going on here. One was getting passionate about the issue of drugged driving. I also became very passionate about distracted driving because I was mentoring a young woman at the time whose parents were killed and she was permanently injured by a distracted driver. Since then, my back has been broken because of a distracted driver. So, I started thinking, 'Well, you know, somebody needs to do something about drugged driving and distracted driving.' Because there weren't a lot of groups at that time doing anything. I also saw a need for the Traffic Safety Community and the Highway Safety Community to come together and work together, because I didn't think they were.
I started We Save Lives as a partner organization, a coalition of other organizations who share similar goals and similar visions so that we could share what each other was doing, promote what each other was doing, etc., and also to deal with drugged and distracted driving. And because of who I am, I obviously would continue dealing with drunk driving. But to be honest with you, it was drugged and distracted that really got me going on this.
Yeah. I want to highlight to everybody the magic of having Candace in my classroom. Here she was surrounded by these MBAs who were out there to figure out how to make it big, succeed beyond the success they have already had in coming into Columbia. And here were, in the presence of this world changer and you could easily be resting on your laurels, looking back at all the success, the 400,000 lives that you have been credited to saving over the years. But you were not done. That part was incredible. The way you interacted with that group and used every moment and every opportunity to get that same message across. To invite each of them to make a commitment, to do their soul-searching and you gave them some practical tips about what to do and how to do.
I invite you to give a couple of those tips and guidance to our community here as well. Because what's powerful there to me is that you are never done with your purpose. You're infused with a desire to help whether it is one individual or a billion. And that is pure magic.
This might be a beautiful moment for us to hear from you about this new project that you've taken on to create a masterclass, an online masterclass. What is that class about?
It's about learning how to be a successful activist and run a successful campaign. It's about the qualities that it takes to be an activist. What is it that you need to do? What is it that you can do? And then how to do it? I'm really good at strategy and how-to's. I get very frustrated today personally about some of the movements that I don't see moving. I think they could be so much more successful if they would just implement certain measures. So in my frustration, and I hate being an armchair activist, I decided that, don't just be frustrated and don't just complain to all your friends, do something about it. So I'm working on this course that I hope everybody can use to some degree, whether they want to start a movement or just make a difference in their community, so that we'll share with them positive, meaningful ways on how they can do this.
I am very passionate. I was passionate back in MADD days, and I'm still a pretty passionate person. But there's something else that people need, and that's logic. I found that to be absolutely invaluable when you're discussing something. Part of this course is going to teach people how to logically disarm your opponent and do it with not just passion and the feeling of righteousness, but also with logic and reason. That's what I'm embarking on now.
It is beautiful. I'm so excited. I am honored that we have a chance to collaborate on doing this project. What are the qualities that you think many people may miss in a well-intentioned way when they want to find a way to change the world in a certain way? They have a certain value. They have a certain desire, a hunger to try and fix the world to kind of be aligned with it. But they struggle. They fail. They retreat. What are one or two pitfalls or shortcomings in perhaps the way they have approached it or the way they have thought about it, because over the years, in addition to proceeding fiercely on your own purpose, you have been consulted by a lot of people who wanted to start their own movements on their own.
I cannot tell you how many people have contacted me over the years. Almost every week I hear from someone who has suffered some kind of an injustice personally or has seen some kind of an injustice within their family or their schools and want to right the wrongs. That was another reason because I can't deal with all of them individually. I thought this course probably could help them very much in learning how to deal with that.
This isn't where you were at Hitendra, with this question, but I want to talk about it for a second. That's protests. We had pickets in the State Capitol and we had pickets at the White House. I watched protesters. I may not agree with their reasons for protesting in certain cases, but they have every right to protest. I'm actually getting ready to do a blog about it.
The problem that I see today is that people, when they disagree, they don't know how to disagree in a way that the public can look at and say, "Hmm you know, I may not agree with how they believe this country should operate or the environment should operate, but I can see their point after they've done this protest." Instead, they alienate people. It is not making the point that I think they need to make. I respect their right to make that point. Whether we agree or disagree. I see a lot of this. Like we've talked about earlier at other times, I've seen movements that aren't moving in the direction that I think would be helpful to all of us.
I'm such a firm believer in people making a difference because it makes my life easier and safer. When you have groups that go forward and fight, rape on college campuses, as there are some of these groups who have contacted me and they succeed, by making a difference or getting more security. It helps my child or grandchild who may go to college. So I'm just a real believer in activists and activism, but I'm also a real believer in doing it in the best way possible. That makes the best difference possible.
Yeah, I love that sort of purity of intention with the practicality of doing it the right way. Borrowing from all the best practices that are out there about how to influence the world and how to win stakeholder support, but doing it for the right causes the right reasons. That's such a beautiful inner outer intersection that you represent Candace, which is at the heart of this conversation that we have here at Intersections. It's beautiful.
I also feel a great sense of commitment to this as a priority. Certainly, it has been for you. But really, I see that today for educators and to that end, for me. Because, we're at a point in time where the old world is getting dismantled and a new world is starting to take shape. But it's very confusing right now. It's probably going to take a while before it finally gets there. Along the way, we have the opportunity to shed certain old habits, maybe even eliminate or dissolve certain old institutions and create a set of new ones, strengthen and reaffirm the core, but do it in the advancement of humanity. So I can't think of a more critical hour for humanity to invest in that journey that you're going to have them create and understand it.
That makes sense, absolutely.
Candace, any final thoughts and words from you as we bring this conversation to closure?
This is my first webinar. Actually, it is. Stay safe. Please practice common sense. Please look at what the doctors say. I want you safe because I love all of you. Please drive safely. Please stay safe. Please do whatever you can to keep yourself and your family safe.
Thank you, Candace. There's a beautiful comment that I used to close out our audiences, heartfelt reaction towards you. Thank you so much, Candace. Looking forward to having you back both on the show and, of course, in helping you launch that masterclass.
For all of us here, let's close it out in the next couple of minutes. What I want to do in just these last couple of minutes is give you a couple of takeaways that I'm taking away from this conversation with Candace. I would love, as I'm doing this for you, to use the chat window to share a couple of your takeaways as well. What is the one big thing that you're taking away, the one big thing that you are seeking to commit.
Let me again just bring this to closure with a couple of these thoughts about what I'm taking away from today's conversation. Three things. The first is to notice that something really Earth shattering and painful happened to Candace and that she could not change. There are times in life when we feel I can't change this. This has happened to me, it is such a gross injustice. That's just such a loss. It is so irreversible. Hadn't all of that happened to Candace? Yet, she decided, there is a path I can take in life, where I just keep going down this path of grieving and loss. And then there's this other path I can take.
The other path is where, yes, there will be that grieving in loss and pain but nobody can bring my daughter back. But, along with that grieving in loss and pain, there will be a sense of reward, fulfillment, resolution that I might feel knowing that through my loss, I went down a path where I help support the reform of society, the advancement of the world, so that today there are many other mothers who have their daughters with them that I didn't get a chance to keep with me because of the loss that I went through. To that end, she seized the pen of her life and started to re-author her life story. So, we are the authors of our own life story.
Then if you noticed, she came from this very unrelated professional background of being in the real estate business. But here she is, going to influence legislators, making her way all the way to the White House with President Reagan, creating social change, having so much impact, speaking from the heart, inspiring masses up until even today. We can achieve things way beyond what we may have imagined if we unshackle ourselves from the constraints of this is my role, this is my resumé and this is what I meant to do in that very narrowly defined channel. What a critical hour for us to actually open ourselves up to that kind of an unshackling of our identity. Because with everything going on in the world today, is it not the case that many of us are or will soon be thrust into roles and responsibilities that we have to go way beyond based on our schooling or professional experiences or our sense of identity.
The third learning. We can, in fact, transform humanity. Notice that one person can make a difference. Notice that over time, if you're patient and you sow the seeds, transformation can happen and all of humanity can rise to a place where today people in some ways are rolling their eyes and saying what really? There was an era where everybody was driving drunk and the stand-up comics on television used to joke about it, and people were so complacent about it, because today people are just so much more sensitive and so much more thoughtful, even though there's more work to be done around drugged driving and distracted driving and even drunk driving. But so much has changed. So we can, in fact, transform humanity. That is, in fact, what the history of civilization shows us, that through the unsung and more visible heroes around the world, gradually society has woken up to a higher state of consciousness.
Now, let me invite you to take one action as a commitment from this conversation about today. That one action is what is one cause, what is once something as a value that you've been deeply drawn to, wanting to manifest and express in the world, because you truly believe it's going to be in the service of humanity. Take that one thing and ask yourself, what is one thing that I can start doing from tomorrow as my first step? Or my next step beyond the steps I'm taking. My first step or my next step? What is one thing that I can do to put that value into action? Then, who knows what the multiplicative long term rewards of that might be?
All right. Thank you, my friends. On that note, I invite you to go back into your beautiful lives and make some powerful meaning happen in the next week and beyond as you take this one value that you deeply believe in inspired by Candace, take one step to more actively expressing it in the world. Thank you.
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